Comments on: Clarification vs. Refinement

By: Designing Search (part 3): Keeping on track « Information Interaction

Designing Search (part 3): Keeping on track « Information Interaction — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:00:55 +0000

[...] from providing inspiration, related searches can be used to help clarify an ambiguous query. For example, query on Bing for “apple” returns results associated mainly with the computer [...]

By: Designing faceted search: Getting the basics right (part 1) « Information Interaction

Wed, 18 May 2011 10:36:12 +0000

[...] approach may be adopted. For example, a search on eBay using the query “golf” returns a query clarification dialogue as shown below: Facetes open for query disambiguation at [...]

By: Blogs I Read: UXmatters | The Noisy Channel

Blogs I Read: UXmatters | The Noisy Channel — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 00:19:24 +0000

[...] For example, in “Best Practices for Designing Faceted Search Filters“, Greg Nudelman offers a constructive critique of the Office Depot search user interface. Some of his material will be familiar to those who have read my faceted search book (particularly the chapter on front-end concerns), but the focus on a single example makes for a compelling read. I also liked Greg’s most recent post, entitled “Cameras, Music, and Mattresses: Designing Query Disambiguation Solutions for the Real World“. I was amused that he and I use the same “canonical” example for the need to offer clarification before refinement. [...]

By: Faceted Search Presentation at New York CTO Club | The Noisy Channel

Faceted Search Presentation at New York CTO Club | The Noisy Channel — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 14:54:05 +0000

[...] Facets get polluted with bad result sets, so offer clarification before refinement. [...]

By: Duck Duck Go! | The Noisy Channel

Duck Duck Go! | The Noisy Channel — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 05:24:36 +0000

[...] But Weinberg has truly done more with less. For example, when I do a query for SIGIR , I get a disambiguation dialog that bootstraps on Wikipedia. Yes, these are also the top two hits on Google, but with a dialog that implements clarification before refinement. [...]

By: Max Wilson’s Blog

Max Wilson’s Blog — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 15:47:37 +0000

[...] an issue at the heart of many of our discussions on this blog: what is exploratory behavior? Is it clarification or refinement? Are users exploring in order to resolve imperfect communication with the information retrieval [...]

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:04:00 +0000

Interesting. I’d read that paper a while ago, but not in this light–probably because I tend to think about query reformulation in the context of faceted search and navigation. But I can certainly see the connection.

By: Pavel Serdyukov

Pavel Serdyukov — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:26:00 +0000

There is a good paper on this topic by Rosie Jones and friends: http://www2006.org/programme/files/pdf/3100.pdf, where they distinguish these two types of reformulation, although they do not specify that one goes after another. This is indeed an intersting observation.

By: Daniel Tunkelang

Daniel Tunkelang — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:02:00 +0000

Here's a simple but hopefully illustrative example:

As part of my adjustment to married life, I'm updating my student apartment, and one of my top priorities is getting a new washer. So I head over to the Home Depot site and search for a washer. I'm all excited that they have washers for less than $50!

Oops. Maybe I should have clarified (using the results of search against the facet values) before refining. I meant these washers. Guess I'll have to pony up at least $200. But now I get to refine by meaningful facets, like color and capacity.

Does that help illustrate the general principle? Of course, there are far more sophisticated ways to implement both clarification and refinement. My point here is to highlight the distinction, and to assert that clarification, when needed, should come before refinement.

By: Max

Max — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 06:00:00 +0000

I completely agree that this is a very interesting topic. Its only recently come into my research path, but ive been thinking almost solely about it for the last few days. my concern is of the different ways that facets behave for each. but my question is – if a user is in refinement, does he need a special and more efficient set of interactions, or is he able to make efficient use of interactions with a clarification interaction model? i think this point is still to be tested… am i wrong?